Change the Ratio Waterloo Region

Join Hive Waterloo Region for the second annual Change the Ratio event celebrating International Women’s Day!

Waterloo Region has the opportunity to show the world how to build a strong, diverse and innovate tech community, and escape the “bro culture” trap of Silicon Valley. Hear from a diverse panel of speakers on how we can make this happen, embracing our differences and recognizing our similarities in each other.

Thanks to National Engineering Month Ontario for supporting this year’s event. Engineering touches so many aspects of our lives: the water we drink, our smartphones, the way business works, medicine, law, government, and much more.

Come for a fun and inspiring evening: there might be tap dancing, there will be snacks! Register now

Speakers:

Samantha Estoesta Williams is the Community Engagement and Government Relations Manager at Mad Hatter Technology, as well as a spoken word artist and community promoter. Samantha will talk about her journey as an early coder back to tech after vowing never to return! @smoestoe

Cat Coode is an internet safety expert and an electrical engineer. After 12 years of technical design and leadership experience at RIM, she started Binary Tattoo to help others have a positive, safe experience online. Cat will talk about diversity in interests and how loving the arts and tech sometimes gets women labelled as ‘not so serious’. @binarytat

Danielle Graham is a champion of #womenintech and currently the Women in Tech Program Manager at Communitech. Danielle will share the impact the Fierce Founders program is making on getting female tech leaders noticed and funded. @daniellebgraham

Sam Nabi is a web developer and founder of Shopzest. Sam will share how code is not developed in a vacuum and how current business models are limiting business’ ability to diversify its hiring. @samnabi

Erica Lee Garcia is the Venture Lead for Engineers of Tomorrow, and a co-organizer of National Engineering Month Ontario. @ejdlee

Caity Dyck and Steve Prentice will speak together about the University of Waterloo’s new Living-Learning program for first year female engineers to keep them in the program through their university career. Caity has worked for Engineering Outreach, and Women in Engineering since 2008 – but has been active as a “Feminista” since early high school. She also coaches swimming and triathlon, and runs Marathons in her “spare” time! Steve is the Residence and Community Life Manager at St. Paul’s University College.